Timoti Te Moke’s story is both harrowing and hopeful — he survived abuse, state care, gangs and prison, even an unsubstantiated manslaughter charge, to become a doctor at the age of 56.

Now also a best-selling author — his book The Unlikely Doctor knocked Jacinda Ardern’s memoir off the number one spot in only its first week — he talked to Dale about the change he’s hoping to achieve with the book.

    

Tēnā koe e te rangatira. I know you’re a hot ticket around town now that you’re a successful author. Congratulations. Did you write the book yourself, mate?

Well, no. The publisher, Allen and Unwin, had asked me, but I told them, I ain’t got the time. And so they suggested a ghostwriter, Eugene Bingham, who I knew. I had a relationship with him, and he already knew a lot about my story.

Are you happy with the way it came out?

Yeah, I am. There’s a lot more that I could have put in there, but the way the book turned out, absolutely. I’m a person who’s seeking change, and this book helps me to create that change.

I’m interested in other parts of you. I know that some interviews have delved into your gang life and the like. But what about the ICU doctor? Let’s start there.

Let’s start with you as a guy in his 50s, who sees all sorts of people coming in who are in life-threatening situations. We don’t have that many Māori guys in ICU, and so I wonder what it’s like to be in this life and death mahi that you’ve put yourself in. Talk with us about the emotions of the moment when something very challenging arrives in ICU.

Hmm, that’s a good question. There are a couple of things that are very fortunate for me. The first thing is that I’m part of a team, so the whole weight of the world doesn’t rest on my shoulders. And also, I’m the new member of the team, so more of that burden is placed on my supervisor, on my mentor, and other consultants.

Of course, I have duties to fulfil and obligations to manage for the patients, and they are quite considerable and very important, but the thing that helps me, I think, is my previous life.

I wouldn’t wish my life on anyone, but it has given me the skills and the fortitude to be able to think clearly in times of tension. I’m able to focus and to realise what needs to be done. Being abused as a child, I was surrounded by tension. So I think I’m one of the most suited people for this because of the life that I’ve come through. Because of the ups and downs, and coming from that stressed environment.

Now, in this environment, I’m as cool as can be, mate.

I’m one of the juniors in there. And so the people who are making those really tough decisions are above me, and they give me insight into how to manage so that when it’s my turn to step up, I know what to do.

It may sound a bit callous, but rather than thinking about this person who’s teetering on the precipice of life and death, I’m thinking more about how I’d manage this person if I was in the position that my supervisors are in. And that’s my role inside the ICU at the moment. It’s more about learning and understanding the nuances of management and how it should roll out.

Tēnā koe, and big ups for your decision to go into this sort of study. What’s your specialist area of medicine? I know you’re in ICU, but it sounds like you’re rotating.

Well, the plan is to go to ICU and get on the training programme for that. But the last six months, I’ve done cardiothoracic, so that’s heart and lung surgery. I’ve been in theatre while they’ve done heart transplants and lung transplants. I’ve been on the ward and been able to put chest drains in people whose lungs have been flooded, and stuff like that.

And so, I come in each day and fill specific spots, and that’s really good because I get into different departments. So I get into renal, cardiology, respiratory, gen med, medical oncology, and so on. That gives me a broad knowledge, and I need that because every single one of them, for one reason or another, could end up in ICU.

Tēnā koe, Doc. What would you say of the need to encourage more Māori into the health workforce, despite the constant barrage of media reports about the difficulties within? I mean, is there a reward for you in a sector where the public perception is one of difficulty?

Absolutely. I’m a firm believer that the health service should reflect the people it serves. And in South Auckland, the majority are brown-skinned, Māori and Pasifika mostly, so the health workforce should reflect that.

But every year, you get wealthy people jumping on their high horse, going: “Why are Māori getting into medical school? Why are Māori becoming doctors? Why are Pasifika becoming doctors? It should be a fair playing field.” Like we’ve ever had a fair playing field our whole life.

They have no understanding of colonisation, of having to live with negative social determinants. They believe that just working hard and pulling your socks up is all we need to do. That there are no barriers that prevent us from succeeding.

But we know that’s bullshit. Because that means if I’m poor, it’s because I deserve to be poor. If I’m uneducated, if I don’t have a job, if I’m of bad health, it’s because I deserve it. We deserve to be hungry, we deserve to be without a home.

But the flipside of that is they think they’re wealthy because they deserve to be wealthy. They’re educated and well-paid because they deserve those things. And that is the ultimate blindness.

I’ve become a doctor in my 50s, which is all well and good, but I should have been a doctor 30 years ago. And the only reason I wasn’t was because of all these barriers that have been put in front of me, because of colonisation, because of the way society is structured.

And I had to overcome all of that, and everything else that came with it, before I even got a chance to look at this. And that’s how people in South Auckland are. It’s not that they don’t have the ability to succeed, but they need to overcome all these other things that people from wealthy homes don’t.

People from wealthy homes don’t see those barriers because they’ve never had to overcome them. So when they see Māori getting into medicine, they say it’s because we’re Māori, and we got a free ride. But we’re not getting free rides. We’re just taking away those barriers. That’s it.

Tēnā koe. I noticed you were in Australia before you came back to study. Are you the first in your whānau to go to varsity, Timoti? And when did you realise that you were as capable as anyone else? When did you realise that: “Hey, I could be a doctor?”

Well, first off, I have two really bright cousins who went to uni, and they’re both doing well in their careers. But the rest of my cousins are like me, and we didn’t go to school.

But I’ve always had an aptitude to learn. I grew up with some guys, 19 guys, and a lot of them were better leaders than me, and a lot of them were smarter than me, but I’m the only one who’s not in prison or dead. And it’s not because they didn’t want what I’ve got. It’s just that, like I said, those barriers are put in place.

But I’ve had to overcome stuff all my life — my whole life has been hard. So, the main issue with coming to varsity wasn’t so much me thinking I couldn’t do it, but more about those barriers put in front of me.

Like, when I came back from Australia, I guess my reputation followed me back. So, when I applied to become a paramedic, I had to have a police clearance — and, of course, they’re not gonna clear me.

So even though I had evolved, society hadn’t evolved alongside me. And that’s another thing for Māori. Even though we have the desire to succeed, society hasn’t evolved alongside us. And that always prevents us from achieving and realising our potential.

But because of what I needed to overcome in my life, and the people I grew up with, I have a single-minded focus at times. And that comes from the gangs. When you’re in a gang, you have this single-mindedness within you — that nothing else exists outside of your goal, whatever it is, and you’re going to achieve that goal, or you’re gonna die trying.

And that’s the attitude that I brought into studying paramedicine. When the barriers went up, I went: “Oh no, screw that. I’m gonna keep trying,” and I kept banging on that door, and finally made it through.

But then there’s another barrier. I’m only four months away from graduating, and the police decided to charge me with manslaughter rather than going on the evidence. They even found video footage of this guy taking a swing at me earlier that day, and him rolling on the floor with a bottle shop manager.

But because I’m Māori, because I’m poor, because I have a history, they charge me with manslaughter. So now the barrier is: I’m four months away from my final exam, and I’m fighting a manslaughter charge. And I’ve got to get through that now.

Here’s the thing, though. I’ve never been a person who gets to a crossroads and goes: “Okay, I’m gonna make this decision here,” and then their whole life changes from that. I’ve never had that “come to Jesus” moment. It’s always been incremental changes, little things. So I don’t really notice those little changes because they’re just so minute at the time.

It isn’t until I’m further on down the road, two, three years later, that I look back and I go: “Wow, I’ve come here now.” And that’s what happened with medicine.

I got into paramedicine, and I didn’t know it, but I had already evolved past paramedicine by the time I got in there. And what had helped me to get there — to actually shove me towards medicine — was the environment in paramedicine, because it was so toxic towards me.

About 85 percent of the people in paramedicine are middle-class European, and a lot of them have relationships with the police, so they were toxic towards me. And that’s what forced me to where I was supposed to be going, because I wasn’t able to get complacent.

I finally came to the decision to study medicine after a job where a woman died.  And I had that single-minded focus: “I’m gonna be a doctor, and that’s all there is to it.” I got knocked back three times, and a lot of people laughed at me. But I kept going, and then I got in.

So the thing with my life is that it’s just been these little changes that mass together to form a perceived change reality — and by the time I come to make a decision like going to medical school, I find that the decision was already made years ago.

Can I acknowledge the mana in your kōrero? It shows an internal resilience and a “never say die” attitude that we can all benefit from. As I mentioned, your run-ins with the police and your time in prison are well documented. And while I acknowledge that you’ve had some battles in your life, even down to being smacked around by your stepdad when you were a kid, I recognise that that’s not all of you, Timoti.

Yes, absolutely.

But I do like to celebrate whakapapa connections, so that those who are reading our pieces recognise themselves in the words. So, talk to us, please, about your Te Moke whānau and your connections.

The name Te Moke comes from our ancestor Karora Te Moke, and that whakapapa is from Ngāti Rangitihi.

Rangitihi was a man who lived about 400 years ago. He had eight children — Ngā Pūmanawa e Waru o Te Arawa — the eight beating hearts of Te Arawa. He married four women, and we came down the line from the second wife.

My koroua is Nikora Karora. I was a whāngai to him, and he gave me the name Te Moke. My kuia Makareti Dinsdale is also Te Arawa, but that’s from Tapuika, an older line. Tapuika was actually on the waka when we came here, and it’s a very astute line. My grandmother is a progeny of a marriage between Tapuika and Ngāti Kuri from the Far North, to bring peace. And through that marriage, the Ngāti Kuri hapū was formed.

So that’s my Māori side, but I’m also part Tongan. I’ve always acknowledged my Tongan side. However, I don’t know anything about my Tongan side. My mum separated before I was born, and every time I asked about my dad, she used to slap me in my face and tell me that this Pākehā fulla was my dad.

So I don’t speak Tongan, I have no idea who the whānau is, or what my dad’s name is. But the plan is that at some time in the future, I will travel to Tonga and try to hono, to make that connection.

I was raised for the first six years by my grandparents, and they were very strong on their taha Māori. I know that a large part of my mannerisms, and particularly my empathy, is an expression of them. Their love, their understanding, their connection to whānau is within me — and it’s only in me because of them. And so when I express those traits, I’m expressing my koro and my kuia, and, in essence, that’s my whakapapa.

After I was taken away from them, that was it for my Māori side. I tried to take up a Māori class when I was 13 at Ngā Tapuwae with Mr Stirling from Te Whānau-ā-Apanui. He was awesome, but by that time, I wasn’t in a place to take on any kind of teaching. I was broken, and no one was gonna get through to me.

I was about 40 when I first stepped on to my marae at Ngāti Rangitihi, and it was really good. I had a real moment there. I understood that this was where I could stand, my tūrangawaewae, and it was awesome. I’ve been back down there many times. And I’ve engaged with many issues around the marae and our people.

I’ve been to my marae in Tapuika a number of times too, but I haven’t had the same engagements as I’ve had in Ngāti Rangitihi. But that’s something that will be happening in the very near future.

Tēnā koe. If there’s a message that you hoped to send by putting your life in the book, what might that message be, Timoti?

The main message that I’m trying to get out there is that we as Māori, as people — and not just Māori, because not only Māori are suffering the effects of negative social determinants, although proportionally Māori are suffering more than most.

But as people who are suffering from the effects of negative social determinants, I want them to understand that they have a potential that they are prevented from realising — and they need to believe that they can realise that potential. Not just for them, not just for their whānau, not just for their people, but for the betterment of this country.

What people need to understand is that there’s no us and them. There’s just us. And we need to succeed. We need to persevere. We need to realise our potential. Because the only way that this country can achieve its potential is if we all achieve our potential.

That’s the message that I want to get out. It’s that we have an ability that’s being held down, and we need to realise that, and by realising that, we’re taking that first step to achieving our potential.

One of my dreams is that this country will evolve to become what it should be. And I’m hoping that this book can help.

We’re in an environment right now, in this country, in the world, where things are just crazy. We’re trying to turn back the clock and make things so much harder for people. We’re trying to divide people again. And we’re trying to make that gap between rich and poor so much wider. We are at a crossroads. So it’s the perfect time for my book.

(This interview has been edited for length and clarity.)

E-Tangata, 2025